If you have been following along here for many, many years, then you know there are a few topics that are near and dear to my heart including the labor shortage, sustainability, and the responsible and ethical use of technology like AI (artificial intelligence) to spur business ingenuity into a new era of work, just to name a few. Something else I am very passionate about is connecting disparate systems. Interoperability has long been a challenge in the construction industry. In fact, once again I am going to have you journey back two decades to 2004 for a minute.
Many of you may remember NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) released a very telling paper in 2004: Cost Analysis of Inadequate Interoperability in the U.S. Capital Facilities Industry.
The research unpacked that the cost of inadequate interoperability in the U.S. capital facilities industry is roughly $15.8 billion per year. Back two decades ago, billion was the big word. What followed after this report was a slow unpacking of the challenges that exist when disparate systems exist in large, complex industries.
What progress has been made in the last two decades? Let’s jump forward a bit to 2021, when Autodesk and FMI Corp., unveiled its study of more than 3,900 professionals on their data practices in 2020. The research found bad data—meaning inaccurate, incomplete, inaccessible, inconsistent, or untimely data—may have cost the global construction industry $1.85 trillion in 2020. Yes, now we are talking trillions with a T.
What is needed is a new infusion of innovation and a spirit of collaboration in the construction industry. This is precisely why we do the Constructech Top Products awards program every year. It is an opportunity for our team to intimately engage with a panel of judges including analysts, professors, consultants, and experts, to scope the landscape of innovation in construction.
We continue to see new advances among those named to the list. Consider the recent example of Intuit Enterprise Suite. In February, the company announced the launch of the new AI-powered Construction Edition for Intuit Enterprise Suite.
Certainly, the AI capabilities will bring new opportunities for construction, but it is the end-to-end nature of the product that is interesting. The new solution brings project, financial, and operational workflows together in one place, helping customers streamline operations, improve cash flow, and deliver realtime visibility into performance to drive profitable growth at scale.
Of course, this is only one example. The technology named to the Constructech Top Products are some of the best in the industry, offering capabilities to solve many of the challenges the industry faces today, such as the labor shortage.
The common thread across this year’s Constructech Top Products is not simply that they are powered by AI, leverage the cloud, or deliver enhanced dashboards, it is that they are intentionally designed to serve the needs of today’s contractor.
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